Boats Named Women
       

Fishermen call them women:
Christina, Beulah, and the Marie L.,
chained to a piece of granite dropped
into the cove. Gutted hulls of wives,
daughters, granddaughters float
their curves, squint painted trims
through a foreground of dense fog,
pull lips against moorings of weather.

Sprocket, Chummy, Red Bickford, Tinker,
and my father haul around Thumb Cap Island,
their love wrapped in newspaper,
brought home, and laid on the washboard.

My father's feelings are simple: hover over
fillets, gather hunger beside the knife. At two
in the morning, she opens her blouse,
lays the sharp edge at the side of her breast:
Here, if that's all you want, take it.

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Copyright © 2016 Rosa Lane All rights reserved
from Tiller North
Sixteen Rivers Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission